1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid-droplet ejecting apparatus which ejects droplets of liquid. For example, the present invention is applied to an ink-jet recording apparatus (i.e., an ink-jet printer).
2. Description of the Related Art
There is conventionally known an ink-jet printer which judges a remaining amount of ink in an ink storing tank (i.e., an ink cartridge), as disclosed by Japanese Patent No. 3075286 (for example, in FIG. 1). In this ink-jet printer, two electrodes are provided in the ink cartridge to detect an electric resistance value between the two electrodes. The detected electric resistance value is always compared with a predetermined value. When the detected electric resistance value exceeds the predetermined value, the ink-jet printer outputs an advance noticing signal for informing a user that the ink cartridge is in a near-empty state. Concurrently with the output of the advance noticing signal, the ink-jet printer outputs, to a recorded-sheet-number counting circuit (i.e., a sheet-number counter), a command for starting to count a number of recorded sheets (hereinafter, may be referred to as a recorded-sheet number). When the number counted by the recorded-sheet-number counting circuit reaches a set sheet-number, up to which the ink-jet printer can perform a recording operation using the remaining ink from the detection of the near-empty state, the ink-jet printer stops the recording operation while outputting a warning signal for informing the user that the ink cartridge is empty of the ink.